Symbolism of NFL rejecting Border Patrol ad

The NFL refused to run an ad from the Border Patrol in this year's Super Bowl program, and Diana West ponders it here:

...There is a hefty chunk of symbolism to ponder here, beginning with the staggering concept that a recruitment effort on behalf of the U.S. Border Patrol can be considered "controversial" by any American organization. More alarming still is that the organization here is professional football, hobbyhorse to redmeat America, the kind of people -- the kind of men -- who are stereotypically supposed to have retained their atavistic reflexes when it comes to defending hearth and home.

The Border Patrol ad in question lists an agent's prospective duties in protecting that last line of defense for the United States -- our border. By any measure, this is an affirmative mission that should have a salutary effect on any civilization with even halfway healthy reflexes...

She also provides this quote from NFL spokesman Greg Aiello:

"The ad that the department submitted was specific to Border Patrol, and it mentioned terrorism. We were not comfortable with that... ...The borders, the immigration debate is a very controversial issue, and we were sensitive to any perception we were injecting ourselves into that."

Immigration2007a · Fri, 02/16/2007 - 10:18 · · Importance: 1